


what the hand dare seize the fire?

by a_walking_shadow



Series: burning bright [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dr Nyarlathotep, Episode: s01e13 The Parting of the Ways, Gen, gratuitous references to ancient Gallifreyan mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-18 14:19:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18701323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_walking_shadow/pseuds/a_walking_shadow
Summary: On the creation of the entity known as the Bad Wolf-Mickey Smith opens the heart of the TARDIS. Rose Tyler does the rest.(Or: Spend too long hanging around with eldritch entities and you might just become one yourself.)





	what the hand dare seize the fire?

Rose Tyler stares into the maelstrom. Flashes of colour, screeching, painful light, the taste of coppery blood and iron-rich stars and lifeless, dusty ground, so many parsecs of cold, empty silence-

The howl of a wolf.

_What big teeth you have_ , she might think, staring into the gnashing jaws of time itself.

_All the better to eat you with, little girl_.

‘That what you’re going to do, then?’ she asks, with as much bravado as she can muster. It’s an impressive act, under the circumstances. ‘gobble me up for breakfast?’

The wolf snorts, pawing at the ground and sending shockwaves through a handful of localised timelines. Rose watches the tremors spiralling away from them with something akin to awe.

‘Impressive’, she says.

_You aren’t scared?_

‘Should I be?’

 

Here’s the thing: Rose was nineteen years old when he came for her, all crumbling charcoal and stuttering embers and eternal silence. And that nineteen-year-old pink and yellow ape looked at the wreckage, stared into the eyes of a near-dead god, and decided to fill the silence with laughter, building campfires out of dying coals and fanning the flames back to life.

He was nothing but shadows, then- but shadows cannot exist without a light. Rose gave him one.

He was grateful, and even when his words and actions didn’t show it, the flames flickering around his hearts certainly did.

And here’s the thing: it’s hard to be scared of the bright darkness beyond when she smiles at it, and it smiles back.

The wolf circles her, cautiously, half predator inspecting its prey, half hunted cautiously examining the hunter. It is not a wolf, not really, although it gets closer to one the longer it watches her, what began as a whirlwind of light slowly forming itself into tousled fur and the clack of claws on stone and burning eyes. Rose stands her ground, time winds twisting her hair into knots, the vortex pouring itself into her eyes. She does not flinch, but meets its gaze steadily. The wolf approves.

‘I don’t want to stop running’, she tells it. She does not say “I don’t want to stop running with him”, but it hears it anyway.

_Would you like to run together?_

She thinks _yes,_ or maybe she does not think at all, and then-

She is

                                                                  i n g   
                                                          f l y

past-future-now screech past her and she

                                                                           t  
                                                                            u  
                                                                             m  
                                                                               b  
                                                                                 l  
                                                                                  e  
                                                                                   s  
down down down except there is no down, no up, too many directions to choose from, too many dimensions to keep track of, her human mind wasn’t built for this-

The Wolf takes over and they run, runrunrunrunrun faster and faster and faster and reality blurs into a rainbow of noise and smell and stardust beneath their paws-feet, and Rose is laughing and the wolf is howling and reality trembles at the thought of it.

Breathless, Time weaving itself through their very soul, Rose-wolf turns in the direction of her fallen god.

They leave footprints as they run; or maybe they were already following them; or maybe the footprints only come later; or maybe they leave the marks but wait to fill in the meaning; or maybe this pathetic three-dimensional language isn’t built to say what happened. But there are scars left all over creation from their flight, and they have always been there and they always will be.

What happened next did not happen in any kind of order, because as soon as it happened it had _always_ happened. But the Wolf gives Death to those who threaten their fallen god, and takes it away from their soldier. She gives him Time instead, eternal and everlasting. (He isn’t built for that, but he’ll learn to manage, one way or another, everyone does, in the end.) She tries to keep Pain for herself, but her fallen god didn’t-doesn’t-won’t like that very much. Instead, he takes Pain for himself, because he has already been burned from the inside out, it can’t be that much worse. (Spoilers, darling, but oh yes it can be.)

The Wolf doesn’t want to leave, but he coaxes, burning up a sun just to say goodbye- _wait, no, not yet-_ burning up a life just to say hello.

The Bad Wolf exists, did exist, will always exist, but only for a moment. Then it curls into his coals and brings him soaring back to life with a surge of starfire.

 

The fires blaze in him, burning brightly, for so long. 

She still carries the echo of the wolf.


End file.
